


England Expects

by Mireille



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-09-21
Updated: 2004-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 11:34:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8100874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireille/pseuds/Mireille
Summary: "England expects that every man will do his duty."





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Tales of the Slayers](http://www.livejournal.com/users/thenyxie/198991.html) ficathon, for a recipient who wanted a story set in England at the beginning of the Second World War. (Yes, I know there's tie-in fiction about this period, though I haven't read any of it. But the request wasn't for a Slayer from the tie-in fic, and so I just went with it.)

Thomas Gaskin picked his way carefully through the darkened street, his eyes straining to follow the movements of the much nimbler figure already several yards ahead of him. "Do be careful, Miss Lovejoy," he called, though he tried to keep his voice low enough that he wouldn't attract undue attention. 

She stopped, turning around. "Oh, Mr. Gaskin, I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to leave you behind." She offered him an apologetic smile, smoothing out some wrinkles in her skirt as she waited for him to catch up to her.

"Of course you meant to leave me," Gaskin said, frowning, as he drew nearer to her. "It would be a ridiculous waste of your abilities for you to slow down enough to allow an old man to keep pace with you." Not only was she faster than he was--faster than a normal eighteen-year-old girl, let alone a man well past sixty--but she was far more agile, able to navigate even these streets, rendered hazardous by a combination of the blackout and the air raid from three nights ago, easily. That was all part of what Pamela Lovejoy was, and in the six months that he'd been her Watcher, he'd never quite succeeded in getting her to remember that it was the most--if not the only--important part. 

He was starting to believe that he never would. Pamela had only been identified as a potential Slayer late the previous year, and he'd certainly never expected her to become the Slayer only a few months later, when she was still only barely trained. Still, the Council had agreed that she was an acceptable choice, despite her extreme inexperience: she was enthusiastic about her duty, she had no living family save a much-older brother in the RAF, and above all, she was English. There would be no need to replace her prematurely. 

"Yes, but if you hurt yourself again, I shall feel just dreadful about it," Pamela pointed out. He'd turned his ankle badly a few weeks ago as they patrolled the nearly pitch-black London streets, and she'd had to almost carry him home. Neither of them wanted a repeat of that, he was certain. 

"I'm not going to hurt myself, Miss Lovejoy. I was more concerned about _your_ safety."

Her hand went to the left-hand pocket of her somewhat threadbare coat; he knew she was reaching for one of the stakes she kept there. "I'm not worried about vampires," she said. 

Of course she wasn't. She'd hardly worried about them when she was merely a Potential, let alone once she had the Slayer's supernatural strength on her side. "I was referring more to the German bombs," he said. 

"Surely they won't attack this neighborhood again?" she said. "There isn't much left," she added, looking around her in dismay. 

Indeed, this particular street had been badly damaged. That was one of the reasons they were patrolling in this area; most of the homes here either had a cellar, or had enough of the building remaining that a nest of vampires could easily take shelter there during the day. And since the beginning of the blackout, there seemed to be more vampires in London than Gaskin was used to; the enforced darkness made it easier for them to hunt, and many of their victims were assumed to have been lost during an air raid. 

"Perhaps not," he said. "But these houses aren't safe, and if you're being foolish, you could easily injure yourself so badly that not even a Slayer's accelerated healing could save you."

She looked thoughtful about that for a moment, nibbling on her lower lip as she always did when Gaskin had told her something she was finding difficult to take in. Then she squared her shoulders and looked him in the eye--which required her tilting her head back quite a bit, as he towered over her. "What does it matter?" she asked him coolly. "There'll be another Slayer; isn't that what you say?"

"Yes, but she might not be English." 

Pamela only nodded, and Gaskin wondered if she understood the importance of that. Not that all Watchers were British, of course--there were always a few from other parts of the globe--but most of them were, and all of the Council's leadership were Englishmen. With their homeland under attack from the Germans, the least that the Council could do was to ensure that their countrymen and women did not suffer unduly from _supernatural_ forces of evil.

After a moment, Pamela started walking again, though at a slightly slower pace. Gaskin had heard rumours that there was a vampire nest establishing itself here, a small group that had moved from elsewhere in the city, and he meant to have Pamela eradicate it before they could entrench themselves any more thoroughly in the area. 

"Do you see anything?" he asked her quietly after a few moments. 

"I _hear_ something," she replied, just as quietly. "They're underground. There," she said, pointing to a house that was little more than a pile of rubble, though the two on either side of it had sustained much less damage. 

She didn't wait for him to say anything before she started searching through the rubble for a way into the vampires' hiding place, and Gaskin cleared his throat. After a moment, she turned her head. "Yes, Mr. Gaskin?" 

"You should have awaited my instructions," he said. Not that it really mattered in this case, but she had to learn to control her impulses. That was her greatest fault; she wanted to act _now_ , never to wait until a better time, and she had to learn differently, and quickly. She'd already passed her eighteenth birthday before being chosen, but that only meant that the Council had agreed to postpone her Cruciamentum for a few months, not that she'd be spared it completely. If she wanted to live, she'd have to learn.

She frowned, just slightly. "Yes, of course, sir," she said, although her voice couldn't hide her impatience. "May I search for the vampires?"

He nodded, and with another frown, Pamela went back to her search. Gaskin stood just behind her, watching over her shoulder and trying to make out details in the darkness. After a moment, though, he thought he'd found something. "Just there," he said, pointing. 

She'd seen it before him, already moving aside timbers and bits of slate from the roof and pulling open the door that led down to the coal cellar. She pulled her sword from the scabbard on her back--she didn't like it, claiming that it made her feel like she was living in the dark ages, but she'd been forced to admit its usefulness; a pistol wasn't much good against vampires--and held it in her left hand, a stake in her right, as she made her way slowly down the stairs. 

Gaskin watched her descend into the blackness; he'd wait up here for her unless she needed his advice. He was no match for a vampire, not these days, and he'd only succeed in getting in her way. 

He could hear voices from below, and although he couldn't make out any of the words--Pamela's voice, he recognized, and another woman's--not English; American, perhaps?--and then a third voice, female as well, with an odd, sing-song cadence. The sounds of a struggle followed soon afterward, but then, abruptly, they were replaced by complete silence. 

Gaskin waited for a few moments, but the sounds of fighting didn't resume, nor did Pamela reappear. After a short time, he realized that he had no choice but to descend into the cellar to discover for himself what had happened. He started down the staircase, cautiously, a stake in his hand. 

As he neared the bottom, it appeared that at least he wasn't going to have to remain in total darkness. Someone had lit candles all around the cellar, and while flickering, eerie shadows weren't much comfort, at least they were an improvement over the blackness. 

To his relief, Pamela was still alive; she had a vampire--a woman, slender and dark-haired, in a long, somewhat old-fashioned dress--backed against the stone wall, her sword at its neck. A second vampire, also female, this one smaller and blonde, stood near Pamela, close enough that in one movement, she would be able to sink her teeth into Pamela's throat. 

"She'll be dust before you break the skin," Pamela hissed.

"Yes, I expect she will." The blonde shrugged. "You're assuming that I care, of course."

The other vampire laughed. "She's very brave. My Spike will like her. He always eats the brave ones up, just like that." She snapped her fingers, smiling dreamily. 

" _One_ Slayer, Drusilla," the other said. "That hardly makes him an expert. Besides, Spike isn't here."

Drusilla. Spike. Gaskin knew those names, just as he knew the face of the vampire who was threatening Pamela; he had to rack his brain for a moment, but then he made the connection. "Be _very_ careful, Pamela," he called, and the vampire turned away from her, her face taking on its demon aspect as she glared at him. "That's Darla. You should have recognized her at once."

"I did, sir," Pamela said with just a hint of smugness. "There's no sign of Angelus, though." 

He was momentarily proud of his pupil; she'd obviously paid enough attention to her studies that not only had she recognized Darla, but she remembered that she had spent much of the past two centuries as the consort of the Scourge of Europe. And he hadn't thought she'd been listening.

"Daddy had to go away," Drusilla crooned. "He never even comes home for his tea."

Darla frowned. "Will you stop babbling, Drusilla? The Slayer hardly needed to be told that we aren't expecting Angelus. We should have left her to worry that he was about to come down the stairs."

"The nasty man came down the stairs instead," Drusilla said. "But he won't go back up, will he, Miss Edith?" She glanced over at a table where a child's doll sat propped up against some books. "Miss Edith knows. He'll have to stay down in the ground with the worms and the snails."

Before Gaskin could reply, Darla was upon him, knocking the stake out of his grasp with ease and pinning him against the wall with one slim hand wrapped around his throat. "We're going to kill your Watcher, girl. And you're going to watch, and then we'll kill you." Then she smiled. "Consider yourself lucky. If there was more time before sunrise, I'd turn you, and lock you in here with him until you awakened and drained the blood right out of your precious Watcher." 

Pamela swung her sword--not at Drusilla's throat, but at her arm. "And I shall hack bits off this one if you try. We'll see who dies first."

Drusilla snarled at Pamela, striking out, but Pamela was far too quick for her, nimbly skipping out of her way and attacking again. After a short time, Drusilla's gown was becoming liberally spattered with her own blood, and Pamela did not seem to have been seriously injured at all. She struck Drusilla's leg, and the woman crumpled to the ground, clutching the injured limb and howling like a child with a scraped knee. 

Pamela turned away from her then, toward Darla, who'd been watching the proceedings without ever releasing her hold on Gaskin's throat. "Let go of him," she said, dropping the sword and turning on her heel so that she could deliver a vicious kick to Darla's shoulder.

It took a second kick before Darla let go of his throat and he could go after his abandoned stake. 

"You must get away from here, Mr. Gaskin," Pamela said, rather sharply.

He retrieved the stake, looking up just in time to see Drusilla drag herself over to grab Pamela's sword. "May I keep it, Grandmother?" she asked, cooing over it as if it were another doll.

"I'm sure I don't care," she replied, punching Pamela with what appeared to be all of her strength. "Use it on her, if you like." 

"Will she scream?" Drusilla asked, still cradling the sword in her arms. 

Pamela kicked Darla again, sending her reeling. "She most assuredly will not."

"There's only one way to find out," Darla said, retaliating with a powerful kick of her own. Pamela staggered back a little, but remained on her feet. She must have been in pain, but she was grinning cheerfully; she always did seem to enjoy herself during a fight. 

Her grin faded, however, when Drusilla swung the sword; her aim wasn't good, and the angle was atrocious, but she struck a glancing blow across the back of Pamela's thigh before she had time to dodge, slicing through the stout tweed of her skirt and soaking the fabric with blood. Gaskin mentally calculated how many ration coupons they'd already gone through in the past few months, wondering how the Council expected him to keep her decently clothed. 

Pamela turned, wresting the sword from Drusilla's grasp, though not in time to prevent her from leaving another deep gash just above Pamela's hip. Gaskin moved quickly to her side, retrieving the cross he kept in his inner coat pocket and brandishing it at Drusilla to keep her away from his Slayer.

"Mr. Gaskin," she repeated, "I really must insist--"

"No, you must not, you foolish child," he said. "Let's get you out of here."

She shook her head. "They're too dangerous, sir. You know that. I need to try to dispatch them."

"You're far more likely to get yourself killed," he pointed out. They _were_ dangerous, circling them with hungry expressions in their yellow eyes, and he didn't know he'd manage to get Pamela out of here alive. 

"And the next Slayer might not be English?" she asked, with a slight smile. 

"Precisely," he said. He wasn't ready for her to die. Every Slayer died someday; he knew that. But not this one, at least, not this day. They needed her too much. She was too good. And damn if he wasn't rather fond of her, despite his best efforts not to be.

"If you don't go, we'll both die down here," she said. "And then the Council won't know that Darla's here in London, and they _must_ be told." Then, with the faint smile again, she said, "Remember, 'England expects that every man will do his duty.' This is yours. Staying here is mine."

After a long, agonizing moment, he nodded. Drusilla was already struggling to her feet; he couldn't waste time. 

"I'll keep them away from you," she said. "You must go as quickly as you can; I don't know how long I can hold them both."

Gaskin turned away then; he didn't see what Pamela did next. He only knew that no one blocked his path to the stairs, and that he made it up into the fresh air without having any idea what was happening in the cellar at all.

It was nearly dawn; no matter what happened to Pamela--God forbid it was the worst--she wouldn't rise before sunset. He would go home and draft his report to the Council, and if she hadn't returned by that time, he would come back here first to make sure that she would lie quietly in her grave. 

It wasn't appropriate, he knew, for him to grieve for a Slayer; she was simply a tool of the Council, and it was as pointless as mourning for a rusted spanner. 

But he could mourn the loss of the girl who'd almost certainly given her life to help protect her country from evil, and regret the loss of such a brave protector, particularly in these dark times; and that was a sentiment that he thought even most of the Council might be able to accept.


End file.
